When it comes to making an impact and accelerating change, it turns out that the how is as important as the what. That goes for both how you design a disruptive initiative--and how you tell your story. To guide M-Prize participants and would-be management innovators alike, here are a set of high-level principles (and some low-to-the-ground tips) that just might increase your chances of success when it comes to making an impact and impressing the judges and your peers in the M-Prize.

We have a big dream here at the MIX: to create organizations that are fundamentally fit for the future—and genuinely fit for human beings. As much as "modern management" has delivered to the world, we believe it is time to radically rethink how we mobilize people and resources to productive ends. And we believe that's not an undertaking for any one individual or organization--it's everybody's problem.

Over the last decade, the Internet has had a profound impact on business. It has spawned a slew of new business models and has helped make operating models vastly more efficient. By contrast, the Web’s impact on management models has been relatively modest.

The MIX and HCL are pleased to announce the winners of the first ever MBA M-Prize. Since the seven Finalists were announced on April 5, the teams have been applying a core principle of open source management innovation: working to refine a good idea into a great Hack. The first round judges provided each team with comments, and MIX coaches worked with the teams to focus the upgrades and outline the experimental plan. After all, an incentive was available that most professors don't offer: a budget of $50,000 to test the winning Hack within HCL.

A grand total of 114 entries from students representing the world's top business schools were submitted by the March 20th deadline for the HCL MBA M-Prize. Students were challenged to invent a Hack to address any deep problem with management practice. MIX partner HCL provided an attractive incentive: a budget of $50,000 to test the winning Hack within the living laboratory of that corporation. Young management innovators rose handsomely to this challenge.

When the folks in charge of the MIX told me a few months ago that their next M-Prize would focus on the enable communities of passion moonshot, I was pretty stoked. In our little corner of the MIX, we're always looking for new ideas on how to inspire and build more productive communities. A little competition never hurts when you are trying to get the ideas flowing.

We have a big dream here at the MIX: to create organizations that are fit for the future--and fit for human beings. It's an aspiration that calls for nothing less than what the philosopher and reformer John Dewey described as a "new audacity of imagination." While "modern" management has delivered an immense contribution to global prosperity, the values driving our most powerful institutions today are fundamentally at odds with those of this age--zero-sum thinking, profit-obsession, power, conformance, control, hierarchy, and obedience don't stand a chance against community, interdependence, freedom, flexibility, transparency, meritocracy, and self-determination. It's time to radically rethink how we mobilize people and organize resources to productive ends.

The competition for the world’s first management innovation prize has officially closed—and the judging has begun! We’d like to send out a hearty thanks to the hundreds of MIXers who poured their bold thinking and tremendous effort into crafting STORIES and HACKS aimed at tackling the moonshots of Increasing Trust, Reinventing Leadership, and Taking the Work out of Work. We are inspired and energized by the sheer variety and originality of the submissions—and we and our panel of Mavericks are hard at work on the difficult task of choosing just a few winners.

Less than two weeks remain before we choose our M-Prize winners, the MIXers who have contributed the best Stories and Hacks aligned with three of our Management Moonshots: Reinvent Leadership, Increase Trust, and Take the Work out of Work. One winner will receive a speaker's slot at HSM's World Innovation Forum in June 2011, and all winners will be featured in the McKinsey Quarterly and Gary Hamel's blog in The Wall Street Journal.

With only 4 weeks remaining until we choose our M-Prize winners, we thought we would take a look and see what Stories MIXers have shared as entries for the world's first management innovation prize. We're collecting Stories and Hacks aligned with three of our Management Moonshots: Reinvent Leadership, Increase Trust, and Take the Work out of Work. One winner will receive a speaker's slot at HSM's World Innovation Forum in June 2011, and all winners will be featured in the McKinsey Quarterly and Gary Hamel's blog in The Wall Street Journal.